National government administrators and the Ministry of Education will assess the state of the facilities in schools in efforts to prevent fires, Interior Permanent Secretary Raymond Omollo has said.

Once the work is completed, she said, officials will have more insight into what needs to be done, especially in boarding schools.

“My state department is leading the coordination of that assessment across the country,” he said.

Omollo expressed concerns about school fires, which usually occur during the third term when Form Four students are about to sit their final examinations.

But he assured Kenyans that the ministry, school heads and directors of education are following such cases to create a conducive atmosphere for examination candidates.

“The general concern is that we need to do more to support learning in our schools and also to be more understanding to appreciate some of the dynamics … in schools,” he said.

The PS spoke at Nyandiwa Mixed Secondary School in Homa Bay County where he met teachers and the pupils.

The team also took the opportunity to assess the facilities at the school.

There has been a significant increase in incidents of school fires and accidents over the past 10 years, according to a report from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Between 2010 and 2020, over 1,000 cases of school fires were reported.